


Denouement

by ftld



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Coming Out, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Good Boyfriend Bokuto, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29032092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftld/pseuds/ftld
Summary: Somewhere between pondering the definition of normal and signing away a hefty chunk of his salary for a two-story, two-bedroom house in Osaka, Keiji tired of unspoken truths.Or, in which Keiji is a nervous train-wreck and Bokuto is a good boyfriend.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 14
Kudos: 104





	Denouement

**Author's Note:**

> denouement - _noun_  
>  1) the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work  
> 2) the outcome of a complex sequence of events

Bokuto is a brick oven swathed from the waist down in cream-colored sheets. The bare expanse of his back glows in the moonlight, arms tucked beneath a pillow, hair strewn over top in careless disarray. Tenacity sparkles in his eyes. It is a sharp look reserved for complex puzzles carrying high stakes—quick and difficult plays on match point, or Keiji tangled up in a rotten mood on a Friday night.  
  
Citrus and sunshine mingle on the sheets. Bokuto spent an outrageous amount of money on them, ranting the whole time about how sheets are an investment no one takes seriously enough. Keiji sleeps well these days—and it could be the sheets, or it could be something more abstract. Could be that laundry day isn’t until Sunday but Bokuto was free today so he came over and took care of it. Might have to do with the box he brought with him, or the one from last weekend, or the dozen or so coming next month.  
  
A comfortable quiet drifts overhead. Bokuto’s eyelids droop, his gaze takes a languid trip over Keiji’s battle-worn t-shirt: _Fukurodani_ screen-printed over his heart and on both sleeves in cracked white over black. The cotton is worn threadbare in places, frayed where it rides up to expose a strip of skin above the waistband of his sweats. There’s no need to fill the silence, no pressure to provide an explanation or hints because Bokuto’s skill reading Keiji is fiercer than his cut-shot. He can’t do it in one look but give him an afternoon, a lunch date, or a night lazing in bed—he’ll read Keiji cover to cover.  
  
Bokuto pulls his elbows in to shift his weight to his forearms, hands still tucked beneath the pillow. His spine curves in a gentle slope of tanned skin and delicious muscles flexing against cream.  
  
“Wanna talk?” Bokuto asks.  
  
Keiji lets agitation build in his throat until he can’t hold it back anymore. A grumble bites its way free.  
  
“Wanna fool around then?”  
  
The offer is disingenuous and lacks Bokuto’s usual slyness. Still, he pulls his arms in closer and waits for an answer as he leans on his fists.  
  
Wild hair clumps into loose, dramatic chunks that cast inky points over his forehead and brow. Keiji traces the shadows through the lines of Bokuto’s muscles, thinks of how each feels under his fingers, how the dips and swells taste when hands aren’t tactile enough. Twinges of hunger come easy but they won’t snare. He is too preoccupied, doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want Bokuto kicking away silken sheets that flow like water when he could stay instead. Light dances on the ceiling above the bedroom window as the word clanks around his chest. _Stay._  
  
“No? Too bad.” Bokuto hums. “Is it about your parents? You know it’ll be fine, they’ve always been open-minded.”  
  
“I know they won’t be upset.”  
  
“You haven’t seen them in a while,” Bokuto mutters, still teasing out clues as he decides on an angle of approach.  
  
“It’s not about them.” Keiji means it more this time.  
  
“Then what?”  
  
It is a lot of things Keiji isn’t sure how to organize. Wide streams of emotions that writhe together until they’re tangled and top-heavy, careening every which way with no regard for sanity or sense. Four words that have never rolled off his tongue in this order. The imminent disruption of the status quo.  
  
Keiji’s rational, analytical side understands that nothing significant will change. The part of him that is too much like his mother—dramatic, wrapped up in musings that become embarrassingly poetic, hyper-fixated on inexpressible details—that side is frantically trying to quantify the exchange of ripping apart something familiar in pursuit of the unknown. It is unexpectedly complicated.  
  
“I don’t know why I’m nervous. They already know. It’s not a big deal.” Keiji rolls to his side. Headlights swipe yellow beams across the ceiling as a car drives past.  
  
Bokuto readies his shot. “They don’t really _know_ , though, right?”  
  
The gravel of Bokuto’s voice tugs at a loose string Keiji has been picking for months. This one thread will unravel the pitiful remnants of the curtain Keiji shields himself and their relationship with, and the longer he toys with it—the less afraid he is of pulling that strand—the more he wants to yank it free. He isn’t sure when exactly it started. Somewhere between pondering the definition of normal and signing away a hefty chunk of his salary for a two-story, two-bedroom house in Osaka, Keiji tired of unspoken truths.  
  
It is a pathetic thing, anyway. The curtain is old and threadbare as Keiji’s Fukurodani t-shirt, not enough fiber left to give him full-cover, held together with sentimentality. Or, maybe it’s Bokuto who is like the shirt—worn, loved, treasured with boundless favoritism and always settling in a way that leaves Keiji a little exposed.  
  
He is over-thinking the whole thing. The shirt is only a shirt, the curtain is in his head, and Bokuto is the only constant worth thinking about in this clash of metaphors and similes. Bokuto, who only needs three exchanges to size Keiji up and hit a pea-sized bullseye from twenty meters.  
  
Everyone knows, but no one _knows_. Keiji has never so much as winked back, has always maintained it is no one else’s business, so stating it plainly feels like confessing a lie. The words are cumbersome, won’t form properly; he still has no idea what he’s going to say.  
  
“Yes. Saying it is different.” When he glances at Bokuto there’s no more curiosity there.  
  
Bokuto relaxes, slides one arm back under his pillow, and reaches out with the other to grab Keiji and encourage him closer. Fingertips dance across his hip. Fiery pulses tap along his side as Bokuto wriggles in for a mellow kiss, breath hot, lips softer than the sheets.  
  
“It’ll be okay,” Bokuto whispers as he changes course to drag his mouth over Keiji’s neck and shoulder, then presses another kiss through the sleeve of his t-shirt before settling back to the mattress with a contented groan.  
  
A genuine proposition grins across the pillows. Keiji nudges Bokuto onto his side and squirms into his space, weaves their legs together because they’re too tall, always have been, and that’s half of what makes it so good. Bokuto is the feel and shape of home. He’s a warmth that sinks to Keiji’s bones and a profound, coiling tension that leaves him struggling for breath.  
  
Fingers rake through Keiji’s hair. Bokuto goes in for a kiss that will tip the scales in his favor and drags him away.

  
###

  
A catastrophe has befallen Keiji’s house come morning.  
  
“You’re imagining it,” Bokuto says, infuriatingly calm with his head cocked toward the sink. He stares at Keiji out of the corner of his eye with an arched eyebrow and curled lip.  
  
“There is a drip.”  
  
Keiji focuses out the squat, rectangular window over the sink. Sun-kissed drapes hang over the sticky frame, scratchy and pale-yellow, too similar in tone to the walls. The homogenized feel drives Bokuto a little batty. Every other week he finds a colorful magnet for the refrigerator or buys bric-a-brac from ripoff capsule machines to display on the windowsill. Right now there’s an assortment of figurines from some children’s TV show neither of them has ever seen. Last week, six oddly colored sea creatures littered the space; next week, who knows?  
  
“Nothing under the sink is wet.”  
  
“It started when I made the coffee.”  
  
It is eight in the morning. In a mere six hours, Keiji’s parents’ train will arrive at the station. Thirty minutes is a fair assumption to get greetings out of the way, debate who will carry what, and win the argument of whether to walk or take a cab back. By three in the afternoon, Keiji will be explaining that Bokuto is moving in and why they’re still going to have a guest bedroom afterward.  
  
The entire thing is too much to think of at once. Keiji needs to consider it little by little and the first step is the kitchen sink. After that is sorted, he will deal with the rest.  
  
“Listen again,” Keiji says as he squeezes between Bokuto and the island to get to the cabinet on the other side where the mugs are.  
  
Bokuto’s body turns unconsciously to let Keiji by. He closes his eyes, shifts the angle of his head, and doesn’t move until Keiji has his favorite mug in hand: bigger and shorter than the rest, a snarky _‘No.’_ scrawled on the side in frantic calligraphy. “I still don’t hear it.”  
  
“You need your ears checked, then.”  
  
They both fall silent, listening for an uncomfortable span.  
  
_Drip._  
  
“That.”  
  
Bokuto’s eyes blink open, corners crinkled with the ghost of future crow’s feet as he fights to keep his mouth set in a neutral line. He pulls his phone from his pocket, places it on the counter, and waits with a timer open. The more patience it takes, the harder he wrestles with his obvious amusement.  
  
_Drip._  
  
The numbers tick up, up, up, far past anything reasonable like fifteen or even thirty seconds. A repressed giggle escapes Bokuto at the one minute mark. Keiji maintains ruthless control over every muscle in his body.  
  
_Drip._  
  
“Okay. Just so I have this clear, are you telling me that we need to find a plumber at eight in the morning on a Saturday for a possible dripping sound coming from maybe the direction of the kitchen sink every seventy-two seconds?”  
  
Keiji’s in too deep to retreat. “That is an accurate summation.”  
  
“Don’t even try confusing me with big words I don’t know, babe.”  
  
“What if it gets worse?”  
  
What if they come back from the train station only to find a flooded house? Keiji would have to stand in the entryway trying to tell his free-spirited parents about his upcoming change in living situation, hopelessly distracted by his belongings floating by and doomed to failure for it. Bokuto would splash around trying to help but wind up making it ten times worse—and then they wouldn’t just need a plumber on a Saturday, they’d need a hotel for the week and all new appliances and a new house with three bedrooms instead of two because if Keiji doesn’t get this out now, he’s never going to do it.  
  
“You mean what if it starts dripping every sixty-three seconds? I suppose we’ll have to say our prayers and settle our debts.” By the end Bokuto is outright laughing, lips pulled back into a wide smile, shaking his head as he reaches for a coffee mug of his own. “Look, I’m not calling a plumber, but I will call Hinata and get his overenthusiastic opinion on the matter. Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll agree with you.”  
  
The offer is clear: Bokuto will provide a distraction in the form of Hinata Shouyou, or Keiji can suck it up. On one hand, Hinata does know an awful lot about some surprising things—on the other he’s still sort of awed by Bokuto and might agree with him out of bias. Then again, Hinata’s still a bit wary of Keiji, too, so maybe it evens out.  
  
“Call.”  
  
Keiji sticks around long enough to hear Hinata pick up on the first ring then ignores everything other than his coffee and some busy-work strewn over the living room table.

  
###

  
Hinata pounds on the door like he has a warrant.  
  
From upstairs, Bokuto shouts, “Come in!” before Keiji has a chance to process the cracking rap of knuckles, Bokuto’s shouting, or his pen rolling five centimeters to the right of where it was before all the chaos. The door swings open in the same breath—Hinata bounces inside in an unruly burst of Day-Glo and denim. Miya Atsumu stumbles in after, far less awake. People waltzing into his house under presumed invitation is something Keiji has learned to live with, just like Bokuto has learned to accept fastidiously ironed shirts, an unrelenting ban of all plush toys, and spending Saturday morning listening to a sink drip once every seventy-two seconds instead of ignoring it.  
  
“’Sup, ‘Kaashi.” The words slur together through Miya’s t-shirt as he rubs it over his face with one hand and swats Hinata’s friendly wave with the other. Miya’s hair—despite obviously being dragged from bed this morning—is immaculate.  
  
“How did you get roped into this?”  
  
“Right place, wrong time.”  
  
“What’d you break, Bokuto?” Hinata calls up the stairs.  
  
“The sink is leaking,” Keiji says before Bokuto can inject his opinion into the matter. Louder, he adds, “Sorry if Bokuto put you out with his refusal to defer to a professional.”  
  
“Oh, I am so not the unreasonable one this time. You don’t hire a plumber for a sink that maybe drips less than once a minute,” Bokuto yells back. He thunders down the stairs a moment later, dressed nicer than Keiji expected: hair only a six or seven on a scale of unreasonable to obnoxious and wearing a white button-down with jeans so dark they’re almost black.  
  
This is surprisingly sweet of Bokuto. That he put what is—for him—a decent amount of effort into his appearance does wild things to Keiji’s heart.  
  
Bokuto arches an eyebrow with a devilish smirk. “Nice, right?”  
  
“I refuse to inflate your ego any further.”  
  
“I choose to believe that means I look hot,” Bokuto tells Miya with a firm nod and then, after Miya nods back, a high-five. "Thanks for coming out, Shouyou.”  
  
“It’s cool, you called right when I was finishing up my run.”  
  
“I was sleeping,” Miya says.  
  
“Yes, we understand your presence is involuntary.” The short and sarcastic tone is reminiscent of a normal Saturday morning and has Bokuto letting a relieved puff of air escape his lips that Keiji doesn’t want to think about too hard.  
  
Miya grumbles something ungrateful under his breath.  
  
“Anyway, the sink is allegedly”—Bokuto stumbles through the word—“leaking. That’s right, right? Allegedly.”  
  
“Allegedly,” Miya parrots, nodding.  
  
Bokuto rocks back and forth. “Yeah. Allegedly.”  
  
“Is this your whole life, too?” Hinata asks Keiji from between the two of them. He spreads his arms, palms up and elbows bent, presenting the pair of grown men saying “allegedly” to each other like they’re not sure it’s a real word. They could be trying to reconcile it with their vocabularies, or they could be screwing around. It’s hard to tell with Bokuto and Miya sometimes.  
  
Keiji puts his papers in order. Taps the stack to get them nice and even, then gets up to join the insanity. “Pretty much.”  
  
Hinata holds out his fist, waits for Keiji to concede a stiff knock of it with his, then sets off for the kitchen. Miya follows close behind and starts poking through the refrigerator.  
  
“Go ahead, Miya, help yourself.”  
  
“Huh?” Miya turns with an open container held near his nose. He tosses the lid on the counter; Bokuto wordlessly hands him a pair of chopsticks.  
  
“I don’t know, guys, nothing’s even wet down here.” Hinata feels around the cabinet with his hands before sitting on the floor and climbing halfway in for a better view. Hopefully he knows what he’s doing, or is at least competent enough to break it in an obvious way that Bokuto can’t ignore. Preferably without water damage. “You got a flashlight?”  
  
“Who’s the dummy now?” Miya asks around a mouthful of last night’s noodles. “Use your phone.”  
  
“Oh, right.”  
  
“So what’s crawled up your ass today?” Miya asks. “You’re usually only tense, what’s the occasion for cranking it up to eleven? Just looking at you is giving me an anxiety attack.”  
  
Keiji’s mouth doesn’t know the shape of the words. He doesn’t know how to say it when it’s already common knowledge, and it doesn’t matter because they’ve decided that parents come first with friends after. Regardless, Miya would make a terrible test-case. He’s too bratty, wouldn’t care if Keiji spray-painted it on the side of the house or confessed via an epic saga of poetry since the result doesn’t affect him.  
  
“My parents are visiting. I haven’t seen them in a while.” Simple and direct. Easy to misunderstand.  
  
Hinata taps his foot as he shines the light from his camera flash around and contorts his body to look from different angles. A high-pitched, jaunty little song hums from under the sink as he moves around, one that has been blaring from every speaker in Japan non-stop for at least a month. Keiji both hates it and knows all the lyrics.  
  
“I can’t imagine what your parents must be like,” Miya says. “Are they just like, you, but older? Or is it a polar-opposite sort of thing?”  
  
“Oh, man,” Bokuto laughs. He leans next to Keiji on the dining room side of the counter. “Polar-opposites. Come over before they leave tomorrow, you won’t regret it. Might even get your fortune told.”  
  
A sharp elbow in the kidney gets Bokuto to stop his nonsense but it comes too late. Keiji is off his game today.  
  
“S’that mean? They weirdos or something?” Miya shoves another heap of noodles in his mouth.  
  
“Don’t even try to talk about other people’s parents, no way Akaashi’s are crazier than yours,” Hinata says.  
  
This is a contest Keiji would win were he so inclined.  
  
“My parents are awesome.”  
  
“Your parents have given you a cactus, a live eel, a literal crate of panko, and a child’s tricycle all in the past month.”  
  
“That’s not crazy. Besides, the eel and panko was for Osamu. Don’t go spinnin’ tales trying to prove your point.”  
  
“Fine, but the tricycle was for _you_.”  
  
Okay, maybe it’s not a shut-out but Keiji is still confident he would come out on top.  
  
“I don’t know if I like how I’m being treated. You’d think I’d get some gratitude for coming all the way out here but no, nothin’ but disrespect. Just when I’m about to be so nice and fix this here sink for you, too.”  
  
Hinata kicks out with one leg, gets Miya right in the shin, and cackles at the bevy of profanity that follows. “Excuse you, _I_ am the one under the sink and it is not broken.”  
  
“Yeah, but _I_ _’m_ the only one out of you morons to notice it isn’t leaking, it’s running.” Miya kicks Hinata back, gentler than there’s any excuse for, and reaches over to tap the faucet. Silence falls over the house for seventy-two seconds.  
  
Bokuto and Miya turn to stare at Keiji. Hinata cranes his neck then slides out from under the sink and stands. With a huff, he pries the empty container from Miya’s grasp and sets to washing it, then the breakfast dishes, too. “Could have said something ten minutes ago.”  
  
“This way’s more fun.”  
  
Keiji gnaws on his lip and stares out the window.  
  
“Are you going to say it yet?” Bokuto asks.  
  
No, Keiji will not be saying it under any circumstances.  
  
“Have it your way.” Bokuto shrugs and reaches over to fuss with the collar of Keiji’s shirt.  
  
An absurd warmth rushes through him for the gesture, for the simple fact that Bokuto could tease him about this for ages but won’t.  
  
“Oh my god.” Miya rumbles with uncontrolled laughter that throws him off-balance and into the counter. “I can’t believe it. _Oh my god._ ”  
  
“What? What happened?” Hinata asks, drying his hands and not-so-subtly glancing around like he wants something else to do.  
  
“You”—Miya reaches over the counter to poke Keiji in the chest with his chopsticks twice before Hinata yanks them away—“You are the emotional one in your relationship. How is that even possible with someone like Bokkun?”  
  
Keiji freezes. Bokuto glances between him and Miya with his lips pressed in a razor-sharp line.  
  
_“Tsumu,”_ Hinata hisses under his breath, tone full of reproach, eyes darting everywhere except across the counter.  
  
Keiji’s ears roar. He supposes this must be what it feels like to be stuck in molasses, or honey, or any number of thick, viscous liquids that would choke someone sooner than drown them. Hundreds of times Keiji has read of moments of clarity, flashes of insight—of these endless seconds that feel like they span hours.  
  
The idea of their story stretching out forever is beautiful. Keiji wants a life full of Bokuto rolling his eyes and calling friends because he won’t call a plumber, but he also won’t call Keiji a train-wreck. A life of moody nights in bed that begin and end the same as the calm ones, or the lazy ones, or the passionate ones when everything is easy touches and Bokuto’s hot skin. He wants to get up first and make the coffee so Bokuto will crawl out of bed and make eggs—and he doesn’t want all that love hidden away where only they can see it.  
  
Maybe plans change. Opportunities should be seized and Keiji’s mouth needs to learn the shape of these words. “There is no _emotional one_ in our relationship, where did you ever get such a foolish idea?”  
  
“There has to be an emotional one in every relationship,” Miya says like Keiji’s the one spouting nonsense but not to worry, Miya will indulge him. “Otherwise the sex would be terrible.”  
  
Hinata makes a spectacular face—every variation of both _what the hell_ and _are you serious_ Keiji can think of cut together with sloppy, jagged strokes. “You’re only saying that because it’s always you.”  
  
“So? What’s wrong with that?”  
  
“You are such a dipshit, Tsum Tsum,” Bokuto says, a choked back laugh softening the underlying threat to knock it off while he’s ahead—a stunning example of subtext. Keiji should make a note of this for the next time Udai tries to submit a chapter with three-thousand words of exposition and no dialogue.  
  
Miya snaps finger guns at Bokuto and clicks his tongue through his teeth in two squelching _tsks_. “Back at’cha big guy.”  
  
If Bokuto starts shooting sly little smiles his way, Keiji refuses to notice. He diligently ignores the staccato racing of his heart and leans on the counter with both elbows, hands tucked carefully out of view until they stop shaking. It already feels better, like he’s getting solid breaths instead of aimlessly moving air in and out of his lungs. The calm follows him throughout the rest of the morning—from shooing Miya and Hinata away and sweeping the floors behind them to running the usual gauntlet of Saturday errands and letting Bokuto improvise far too much when it comes to the grocery list.  
  
It is a normal Saturday right up until the clock starts rounding on two and Keiji has to clear the last of his work away from the living room table. Bokuto leans against the door while Keiji puts his shoes on—bigger than he ever was in Keiji’s first apartment and wearing a solid, even-keeled demeanor that took years to earn. It looks good on him.  
  
“What is it?” Bokuto asks when he catches Keiji staring. “Are you finally going to admit I look hot?”  
  
There’s so much he could say but the only part that feels right is, “You brought nice clothes. You didn’t have that shirt here before.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s an important day. Deserves a shirt with buttons and a collar and only a tiny little stain”—Bokuto dodges Keiji’s grab with a chuckle but winds up trapped in the corner for it—“Nuh-uh, you can’t be mad if you can’t even find it.”  
  
Keiji reaches out and flips up the left side of Bokuto’s collar. A misshapen brown splotch the size of a coin hides beneath. First try.  
  
“How do you do that?” Bokuto asks, smacking Keiji’s hands away.  
  
“It’s my super-power.” Actually, Keiji was there the last time Bokuto wore this shirt, but he’s not going to tell him that.  
  
“That’s cheating,” Bokuto grumbles. “Anyway, I figured it’s a fifty-fifty shot with your mom picking a place to eat. Might need a tie, might need a leather jacket. Can’t go wrong with a plain button-down whichever way it turns out.”  
  
That’s a pretty fair point. “She was saying something about a friend of a friend and French food. Knowing her friends, my bet is on both.”  
  
“Is French the one with all the noodles?”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“Too bad,” Bokuto says. “Wait. Is French the one with the snails?”  
  
Keiji reaches out for Bokuto’s hand and pulls him away from the door. The touch lingers, shifts to something soft rather than purposeful as Bokuto’s fingers shift to accommodate him without a thought. “Hmm? Yeah.”  
  
“Ever have ‘em?”  
  
“Once. Was okay, not my favorite.”  
  
Bokuto lets out a low whistle. “Small mercies. I don’t know what I’d do if you wanted to eat snails, babe.”  
  
A laugh explodes between them. This is what it’s all about, moments like this where they’ll always have new things to learn even though they know each other through and through. Bokuto steps closer when Keiji tightens his grip, offers a kiss to his temple, and scratches his nails through Keiji’s hair.  
  
“Hey,” Bokuto says, quiet with his cheek pressed to Keiji’s brow, “I just want to tell you real quick that I’m gonna hold this together for you. You don’t have to chill, you don’t have to calm down, alright? It’s okay. I got you.”  
  
Keiji is just mad for this man. He couldn’t put it into words if he tried. It’s something roosted in his heart so deep it flares through his whole body and defies explanation. This is something that too often goes unsaid, but it shouldn’t, and Keiji needs practice being blunt and obvious in this particular way. “You know how much I love you, right?”  
  
“Don’t worry, I know,” Bokuto says. “And I love you, too, even if you do crazy shit like eat snails. Because of, in fact.”  
  
He shouldn’t. This is a lovely moment that Keiji wants to remember forever and he absolutely should not ruin it—but he has such a good comeback and why would he ever hold it in when he never has before? “I also once ate—“  
  
“Nope.” Bokuto pops the words from his lips and takes a rapid step back, hands splayed between them. He lets out a burst of chuckles: a little hysterical, a little playful. “Time to go, right?”  
  
Keiji lets it marinate. He waits until they’re out the door, until they have a couple of blocks under their belts and Bokuto stops nervously cringing away every time Keiji takes a breath like he’s about to say something. Then, he strikes. “They were so crunchy.”  
  
“Don’t make me tell you about the time I broke my leg jumping off the jungle gym again, I’ll do it,” Bokuto shoots back from behind a full-bodied shiver and vigorous _blegh._  
  
“I’m immune to that story. You’ve used it too many times.” Keiji is lying. He can’t stand that horrific tale and Bokuto knows it, too. A smug, daring eyebrow waggles when they stop at a crosswalk to wait for a break in the traffic. It is a challenge. Something familiar ignites in Keiji’s chest. “Fine. I won’t talk about the crickets.”  
  
“So there I was, minding my own business on the playground—”

  
###

  
The first time Keiji embraced passion he was fifteen, enraptured by a sixteen-year-old Bokuto Koutarou screaming triumph after blasting through a triple block. Bokuto thumped his chest with a fist like he couldn’t get his heart pounding hard enough; like he could be even more alive when his vibrancy was already stunning. He was radiant, a supernova. A hundred overwhelming analogies that Keiji couldn’t find the space to breathe through as he devoured the sight of Bokuto exploding with a joy Keiji had never fathomed.  
  
The picture is still vivid in his mind, years later. Bokuto looks just as stunning leaning against the living room wall with both hands shoved deep in his pockets as he did on the court during his last rookie tournament at Fukurodani. He is still radiant, still steals Keiji’s breath away.  
  
It is five o’clock. Three came and went in a burst of cowardice along with four, buried in meaningless small talk. Feet planted shoulder-width apart, hands fidgeting behind his back, Keiji stands between the living room table and the television. A cold sweat threatens his nape. Those horrendous, churning, sour nerves in his guts wail a terrible keen that prickles his skin and send shivers through his shoulders, down his arms, and into his fingernails.  
  
Keiji’s parents sit on the couch: Mother, one leg crossed over the other, paisley skirt light as taffeta and so long it puddles on the floor by her feet. Mother’s posture is perfect. Her hands fold carefully over her knee with a competence that betrays the glassy blue, pink, and purple beads strung over her slim wrists in countless loops. Gaudy turquoise rings on two fingers punctuate a tremendous diamond glimmering between them on a third.  
  
Huddled close, an arm casually slung over the back of the couch, Keiji’s father slouches with an amused impassiveness. Tweed patches decorate his elbows, glasses sit askew, low on the bridge of his nose, horrific polka-dotted bow-tie knotted crooked and too loose. He wears a smart argyle sweater-vest under his jacket, as if he started there in an attempt to look professional and then immediately lost his way. The unruly hair is distractingly familiar but it’s the glasses that hammer it home: Keiji makes that same face all the time. Next weekend will be devoted to obliterating all plaid, argyle, polka-dots, and tweed from his closet.  
  
They arrived from Tokyo with two suitcases. Keiji knows only one is clothes. The other is books, a sound machine boasting forty-seven different settings that they take everywhere, a cache of aromatherapy supplies, and whatever else they’re into at the moment. Homemade jewelry, Keiji guesses, eying the dizzying number of bracelets.  
  
Keiji’s mother blinks slowly—mindfully as she likes to say—one long blink followed by a shorter flutter because even if she doesn’t realize there’s no such thing as mindfully blinking, her eyelids sure do. “Maybe you should sit down. We’ll listen to anything you have to say, but you’ve been standing there for a while and it’s getting a little awkward.”  
  
Five drips of the faucet. Three hundred sixty seconds. Keiji has been counting even though the sink isn’t leaking and nothing happens once he gets to seventy-two. He should be six minutes into his speech about how Bokuto is moving in but every time he thinks he’s ready to start something catches in his throat, his shoulders cramp, and a vice tightens over his forehead. Little half-crescents sting between his knuckles from his fingernails.  
  
All he has to do is say it so why can’t he just _say it_.  
  
“Keiji?”  
  
They have never asked anything of him. Keiji was never told what to study or who to be friends with, and never chided for all the attention he gave to volleyball when he was never going to pursue a career of it. Suddenly they’re watching like he’s going to announce a promotion or a child or say he’s revolutionized the art of copy editing and the world itself will be a better place from here on out. His palms tingle with phantom itches.  
  
“Bokuto-san has been placed on the National Volleyball Team.”  
  
All three of them look at Keiji like he’s lost his mind. Belatedly, he realizes the last time Bokuto got an honorific off him was on the court at their last Nationals together. Apparently, Keiji regresses while attempting to exploit _Bokuto Weakness #6_.  
  
Bokuto vibrates in place trying to leash the compulsive need to sing an ode to his jump serve as he pleads puppy eyes at Keiji to cut it out with the unfair diversion.  
  
“I think you told us that already,” Keiji’s father says, drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa.  
  
“Probably,” Bokuto mutters but he stops short of pointing out that he made the National Team a year ago and this is decidedly old news. He visibly hauls in everything other than enthusiasm and says, “I’m up for a starting position next season,” and then it’s over, _Weakness #6_ takes hold.  
  
Keiji picks up both suitcases sitting by the front door and retreats up the stairs to the guest bedroom. Downstairs, Bokuto answers questions with growing zeal; he’ll make Keiji pay for it later but it’s worth the chance to get a moment alone.  
  
He sets the suitcases in a neat line at the foot of the bed and nudges them parallel with his foot. Tension claws up his spine. Those expectant faces like he was about to say something amazing were brutal, shoved all the words straight back down his throat until he choked on them.  
  
How is it so hard to say something they already know? Keiji’s parents weren’t surprised to see Bokuto at the train station, haven’t asked why he’s still here or hinted that he may be intruding. They would probably whine injustices all night if Bokuto didn’t make an appearance. This is a formality at best, it shouldn’t be so difficult.  
  
A quick rap on the door; Bokuto opens it a crack and sticks his face in as far as it’ll go until his cheeks butt up against the frame. ‘ _Seriously?!_ _’_ he mouths louder than if he’d hoovered in every bit of air in the house and screamed.  
  
“Sorry.” Keiji doesn’t mean it right now but he probably will later.  
  
“That was a _dirty_ trick.”  
  
Bokuto turns sideways to slide in without opening the door any more than he has to, some odd, unconscious attempt at secrecy. He keeps his hands to himself but spreads his arms wide in invitation, only reaching out when Keiji takes a step closer. Both arms come to a careful rest around his waist. The hug carries no expectations, offers every bit as much closeness as Keiji wants and no more, no less.  
  
“I panicked.”  
  
“Sure did. Never thought I’d see the day, either. Wish I had a picture of the look on your face when you threw me at the chillest wolves ever.”  
  
The nerves haven’t quite left. Keiji’s laughter is wobbly, teetering on a line between hysteric and the sort of self-depreciative hindsight that straddles a line of its own.  
  
“Your parents are _very_ proud of me by the way,” Bokuto brags. Aftershocks from deploying _Weakness #6_. “They said to come get you, we’re going to some restaurant. The name of it sounded like the vowels were eating the other letters, I have no idea what it was. So… tie?"  
  
“My father is wearing both polka dots and argyle, you don’t need a tie no matter where we’re going.”  
  
Bokuto sways them side-to-side. “You’ll stop me from ordering the snails, right?”  
  
A startled laugh stirs in Keiji’s lungs. “You would deprive escargot of the infamous meat dance?”  
  
Fingers dig into his sides. “Okay, first? Please say French stuff, like, a lot. All the time. Second, the meat dance is Hinata’s.”  
  
“Then why have I seen you perform it at least a dozen times and Hinata, not once?”  
  
Bokuto tucks his chin to the crook of Keiji’s neck and breathes hot on the skin under his ear. “Just lucky I guess.”

  
###

  
The second try goes slightly better than the first—meaning Keiji articulates something relevant to his point and does not flee afterward.  
  
“Bokuto is moving in with me.”  
  
Keiji has no segue. He blurts it out over a perfectly lovely dessert following the most lavish dinner he’s ever had in a basement hole-in-the-wall restaurant with red-checkered diner tablecloths. The menu was a little Japanese, a lot European, and almost entirely incomprehensible for Bokuto which was too bad because Keiji felt obligated to stop him from ordering three things he’d never get over eating. Dinner was served on mismatched china—like a conglomeration of various inheritances shuffled together and distributed at random with no proper place-settings, only one fork, and paper napkins; the dessert plates are plastic. Keiji’s mother loves these sorts of places. She knows at least five in every city and can sniff them out on demand.  
  
His father nods and pops a strawberry in his mouth, gaze cast upward as he chews. “A fine idea, I think. We’ve worried about you living alone—humans are social creatures, we need to form attachments and cooperative interpersonal structures in order to be emotionally and spiritually fulfilled.”  
  
Habits, Keiji is learning, are a horrible pain to break. He was vague, left room for them to misunderstand because that’s how he’s used to talking about Bokuto. Now he’s stuck in the awkward position of clarifying or retreating for attempt number three later.  
  
“No, we’re… going to live together,” Keiji says lamely. Then—because he has abandoned his natural bluntness and all sense for Miya’s potato-sized brain—he waves his arms and makes a nebulous motion like he’s sculpting something round. “ _Together_.”  
  
Mother stares. She tilts her head to the side and glances at Keiji’s father, somewhat unsure and forgetting to mind her blinks before turning fully in her seat to address Bokuto. “Do you think you can convince him to paint? That much beige is simply inhumane.”  
  
They were supposed to have unreasonable questions and try to smother him with hugs and tears. Are they being purposefully obtuse or do they still not get it? How could they possibly be oblivious, Bokuto keeps squeezing Keiji’s leg under the table when he’s not trying to interfere with his fidgeting. Every time he does it Keiji jolts in his seat—twice he’s smacked his knuckles into the edge of the table with a painful _thwack._  
  
“There is nothing wrong with beige,” Keiji says because he is too off-balance to think of anything else.  
  
Keiji’s mother _tsks_ and gives him an unimpressed glower.  
  
“I don’t know…” Bokuto draws the end too long; it happens when his tongue wants to slap _babe_ on the end but can’t. Keiji’s parents ignore yet another blatant tell. “Beige is pretty boring. We could at least have some contrast or an accent color, you know?”  
  
“Since when do you know what any of that means?”  
  
“I’ve been looking into it ever since you said you want to redo the kitchen.”  
  
It’s not even true. Bokuto’s the one that hates the kitchen and wants the whole thing torn out but that hardly matters when he’s managed to redirect the conversation so efficiently. He might get his way. A new kitchen is fair compensation for all the space he gives Keiji to breathe as they finish up dessert and slip from the little basement restaurant with no signage.  
  
Keiji hangs back once they’re outside, lets Bokuto lead his parents in an unhurried, scenic meandering of the city. A warm undercurrent of spices mingles with an industrial taste baked straight into the asphalt. The streets twist and turn around them in a haze, blur past in wavy streams of lights, noise, and endless throngs of pedestrians until Keiji is gliding along the canal without moving a muscle. Two kids race by with elation cracking their faces in half. Hundreds of lanterns cast fantastic colors over the water like oils on canvas as the last bits of evening slip away.  
  
Bokuto leads them away from the water and mimes slamming a spike straight down with an infectious grin. For an endless second, Keiji is seventeen years old, stumbling through scorching Tokyo nights with Bokuto, stealing kisses in deserted back alleys, thriving in the anonymity of being a pair surrounded by millions. That same terrible song Hinata hummed from under the kitchen sink that Keiji knows every word of starts and stops three times as they pass by store after store.  
  
“Oh!” Keiji’s mother says as they round a corner. She stares up at a massive banner hung three stories tall over a quaint hodge-podge of a market, the kind with an ever-rotating stock and no real organization. “That’ll do. Wait here.”  
  
She drags Keiji’s father inside, her hand in a loose grip around his wrist.  
  
“What are they doing now?” Keiji stares, baffled as his parents walk off to the right, only to about-face and head in the other direction. They do the whole thing again before finally wandering down an aisle out of sight.  
  
“Your mom said something about a housewarming gift.”  
  
“Fantastic.” Keiji grinds the word out from between his teeth. Nothing is going how it should and now he’s pacing outside some corner grocery while his parents rummage around inside. Hopefully, they’re looking for alcohol.  
  
“Are you totally losing it?” Bokuto asks, voice low, head ducked a little too close but Keiji is through with caring about those sorts of subtleties. Why bother? Not even Miya called them out this morning when Bokuto had clearly spent the night and his parents keep giving each other knowing looks while tossing around the word _roommate_ like it actually means just that.  
  
“No.” He feels worn. Ragged. Pent up with frustration for the loose thread tormenting him and drowning in nostalgia as a gaggle of kids still in their school uniforms push by in the opposite direction, rowdy and laughing their way through rote apologies. “Yes.”  
  
“They really latched onto the roomies thing, huh?”  
  
“I didn’t say it right.”  
  
“You said it fine, just needs a second go.” Bokuto presses his lips together and chuckles. “Maybe three or four, actually. Just try to stop over-thinking it.”  
  
“That’s not helpful,” Keiji says, lying through his teeth and like every other time, Bokuto knows it. Bokuto’s presence alone helps more than Keiji can quantify. He sighs. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”  
  
Keiji’s parents emerge from the market. Two bags hang from his mother’s wrists that thankfully appear weighed down by bottles. Keiji’s father hugs a large bag; once he’s close enough, he thumps it into Keiji’s chest and lets go with an enthusiastic, _“Mazel tov!”_ that catches the attention of every pedestrian in sight.  
  
“This appears to be a ten-kilogram bag of rice,” Keiji says, face pinched. Maybe Miya and Keiji share the same parents, just neither of them know it. It’s faintly plausible in the way that they’re so flighty, who knows what they get up to when they’re not around. Not much would surprise him.  
  
“And I don’t think _‘mazel tov’_ is a real word,” Bokuto says as Keiji’s mother unloads two deep blue bottles of sake into his arms and pinches both his cheeks. When he sees Keiji’s face, he cringes. “Is it?!”  
  
Keiji needs to become better friends with Hinata if only to have someone to commiserate with about evenings like this one. “It’s Hebrew.”  
  
Bokuto shrugs baffled confusion then peers at the bottles cradled in his arms. His furrowed brows smooth.  
  
That sake will never be opened, Bokuto will treasure it forever—he’ll build a shelf in the kitchen to display the bottles and tell this story to everyone who will listen long before it becomes funny rather than mortifying. From that perspective, these are outrageously thoughtful gifts: practical for Keiji, enduring and sentimental for Bokuto. A quiet and understated showing because that’s how they’ve taught people to approach them.  
  
“We could use rice,” Keiji concedes, shifting the bag around to get a proper look. “Thank you?”  
  
Being hugged in front of the corner store with ten kilograms of Tsuyahime— _specially cultivated rice, five times fewer pesticides!—_ sandwiched between Keiji and his mother is every bit as unappealing as when she mauled him at the train station. A surreal, neon rainbow reflects oddly in his glasses from the shop windows, washing a bus-sized metal crab hanging off a building down the street in yellow and pink. She pats the back of his head and whispers, “well done,” like it’s a secret between them.  
  
Keiji feels utterly wretched for this farce.  
  
The worst part is there’s no more question of it, they’re celebrating like he actually told them—because he did in his own cagey way—and it is infuriating. Keiji wants to say the words, wants to do it right. This consolation prize of an unearned victory is hollow.  
  
Before Keiji can gather a response she releases him, snakes her arm through his father’s, and twirls them on the sidewalk with a delighted shriek that happens to coincide with no less than three people crossing the street.  
  
Keiji grits his teeth and relishes the crunch of rice against his chest.

  
###

  
Keiji is a grown man. The thought sticks in his head, flails about every two or three minutes with devastating absurdity. This is his house, he owns it. He is good at his job, people rely on him, and he is a grown man so why—why is he huddled in the downstairs washroom with Bokuto, frantically attempting to problem-solve under their breaths like teenagers?  
  
A low hum travels through the ceiling: one of the settings in the mid-thirties on the sound machine. A series of off-beat thumps pulse. Bokuto frowns at the towel rack. “I thought meditation was quiet.”  
  
“You’re happier not knowing,” Keiji says.  
  
The hum grinds to a halt with abrupt, punctuated vibrations that rattle the ceramic soap dish against the countertop. Keiji’s father chuckles as the door upstairs opens and closes, then some quiet shuffling down the stairs before the house falls quiet. Bokuto waves questions with both arms as they listen under some shared delusion of risking discovery if either of them takes a step. The ridiculousness of it jolts Keiji into action. That is _his_ living room out there and Keiji is a grown man, damnit.  
  
“Babe, it’s fine.” Bokuto whispers with a nervous eye on the door. “You still have all of tomorrow, and if you don’t want to do it you don’t _have to_. We have so much time, they’re not going anywhere. We can hop on a train next week, or you can stop by when you have a meeting—there’s no rush.”  
  
“I want you to stay.” There is nothing Keiji wants more. Not just in a month but tonight, right now, and every other seventy-two seconds they can get away with. “Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.”  
  
It is nine twenty-six. Keiji has been chickening out for nearly six and a half hours. Now is the time. He will not be the emotional one in a relationship with Bokuto Koutarou, he has _some_ dignity, after all.  
  
“What? I have to hide in here?”  
  
“You don’t have to, just… hold on, okay?”  
  
Keiji doesn’t wait for an answer; he marches out with his chin high and shoulders scrunched to his ears. This has been simmering for months. He refuses to squander the opportunity again.  
  
Mother writes in her journal at the little table tucked into the dining room, two candles flickering behind her on the island. They warm the space up the same as the sun does, cast quivering shadows in every direction. Keiji’s father sits next to her, doodling in the margins of her book with a garish lime-green pen and puckish smile. He stops for a moment to say something, too low for Keiji to catch; she giggles with one hand pressed to her mouth.  
  
Keiji clears his throat and wonders if mindful blinking would calm the maelstrom that kicks up every time he tries to start this conversation. “I need to speak with you.”  
  
“Alright,” Mother says, closing her journal around her pen and moving it aside. Forced to abandon his drawings, Keiji’s father sets his pen down, too.  
  
Keiji sits across the table, balls his hands into fists before resting them on his legs then changing his mind and lying them flat on the tabletop. He stares out the window above the sink. Takes a breath, and another. The pads of his fingers tap a mindless rhythm.  
  
Mother holds her hands out flat, palms up between them. When Keiji hesitates she clicks her tongue and snaps her thumbs and middle fingers until Keiji gives in. A heady mix of patchouli and lavender clings to her, will be stuck on Keiji for days: equal parts soothing, nostalgic, and unpleasant. Keiji doesn’t like soft hands, he prefers Bokuto’s rough, calloused touch. His mother’s hands have always been like this, though—a little tacky with oils, smelly, soft. She pulls her thumbs over the lines running between his forefingers and wrists.  
  
“Tell me what you have to tell me,” she says, glowing in the candlelight, voice quiet as a whisper.  
  
She already knows. Everyone knows. Keiji never kept it a secret but he also never said it aloud because the line between privacy and fear got blurry somewhere down the road. This new combination of words is clumsy in his mouth.  
  
“Bokuto is my lover.”  
  
And just like that, it’s done. Spoken plainly with no room for misunderstanding. It feels nothing like he thought—not a relief nor a weight dropped from his shoulders, merely the curtain unraveled.  
  
“That’s nice,” Keiji’s father says with an unhurried shrug and yawn.  
  
Mother hums, elbows Keiji’s father with a quick jab that earns her a squeal, and stops whatever else he had to say in its tracks.  
  
“We’re moving in together. Not as roommates. We’re going to build a life and maybe a family.” A scratch burns in the back of Keiji’s throat. The grip on his hands tightens. “I’m not going to obscure the truth of it. We’re doing this because we’re in love and we don’t want it to be something we just don’t ever talk about.”  
  
“A solid foundation to build a lasting future,” his father says, nodding.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Mother giggles and squeezes Keiji’s hands again before gently placing them back on the table. She smooths hers over top. “You seem happy.”  
  
“I am.”  
  
“Then I’m happy for you. I approve, of course”—she chuckles—“though I know it doesn’t make any difference. You got that from me, you know.”  
  
Keiji absolutely did. Hers is the notorious story told at family gatherings by spiteful second-cousins to scare the kids into mutually beneficial marriages. There’s less of it now than when Keiji was a child, but it still comes up. Mother makes sport of it—snaps her head back with raucous laughter and tells the little cousins about the summer she met Keiji’s father road-tripping down the coast.  
  
“Talk of new families always reminds me of Koro—do you remember him? You were so young when he passed. Such a sweet dog, the two of you were inseparable. We got him when we were starting to think about having a family of our own. Though we got distracted for quite a while and didn’t get around to you until much later.”  
  
“You never wanted to walk or clean up after him,” Keiji’s father says, exasperated and loving all at once.  
  
Keiji only had a few years with Koro as a child but he remembers impressions of the dog fondly—soft, fluffy white fur embracing his cheeks and a weight sprawled over his legs while he slept. “I remember.”  
  
“Just a thought. An anecdote or advice, whichever you prefer. I’m proud of how strong you are. Bokuto is a lucky man for having you—and you, him.” Keiji’s mother smiles at something over his shoulder.  
  
Bokuto leans behind the corner of the little hall to the washroom, a grin on his face. He swaggers over, jerks his hand back when he gets close then slowly reaches out to brush the back of Keiji’s neck. It’s a small thing but it’s a start; it will take some getting used to for both of them. “She’s right, you’re so lucky to have me.”  
  
The joy Keiji discovered when he was fifteen gurgles in his chest until he can’t help but let it out.

  
###

  
Bokuto is a brick oven built into the foundation. Immovable. Incandescent. A hundred words Keiji wants falling over his tongue that never hit the perfect note. They’re sitting together on Keiji’s bed—their bed, really, Bokuto even helped pick it out—Keiji’s legs folded in front of him, knees brushing Bokuto’s thigh. Bokuto lounges against a mountain of pillows, nose buried in a manga magazine. He unfurls it and flips through a few pages before settling on one. Keiji glimpses the glossy cover when he folds it back again.  
  
“You’re reading the competition now?” Keiji asks, amused.  
  
“Pirates, babe. This one has pirates. You get pirates, then we’ll talk.”  
  
“I’ll be sure to pass along that pirates are the new zombies.”  
  
Bokuto grins, toothy and delighted.  
  
“Thanks.” This is another thing that could go unsaid, but from here on Keiji will make sure that it doesn’t nearly as often. “For today. I’m better for having you in my life.”  
  
The magazine comes to rest on Bokuto’s thighs as he sits up, leans forward, and bends his neck to get a better look at Keiji’s face. Bokuto bites his amusement back; his grin spreads so wide his lip pops free from his teeth. “Oh yeah? Anything else? I could stand to hear more about how amazing and supportive I am.”  
  
Keiji shoves him back with one hand wrapped over his entire face. “Laugh it up, you’re next.”  
  
Bokuto freezes. His eyes grow comically wide in time with a massive inhale that puffs his chest out and seems to give him a whole three centimeters of height before he deflates into a slump. There’s a twinge of sympathy—Bokuto has sisters, after all.  
  
“I didn’t think about that part. Let’s do you again.”  
  
“But then we’d have _twenty_ kilograms of rice.”  
  
“So what? Just leave it on the counter and invite Tsum Tsum over.” Bokuto leans back and beams at the magazine resting on his thighs.  
  
Keiji’s been playing with the hem of Bokuto’s shorts, didn’t even notice he was doing it but he’s always fidgeted and never tried much to overcome the habit. The fabric is soft, a dark red that looks pleasant against the crisp sheets. Bokuto’s profile lights up in the glow of headlights cascading across the ceiling.  
  
It’s a night that started the same as many others, will end like thousands to come, but this part in the middle is for them to decide. Keiji shuffles around and rearranges Bokuto’s arm over his shoulders so they can read together. His hands move to fiddle with the hem of Bokuto’s shirt.  
  
“How do you feel about dogs?” Keiji asks when Bokuto thumbs to the next page and awkwardly adjusts his grip.  
  
“You want a dog?”  
  
“I don’t know. Could be fun.”  
  
“You’d spoil it,” Bokuto says, matter-of-fact and entirely correct.  
  
Not in the traditional sense. There would be no scraps fed from the table or sleeping on the bed. Instead, Keiji would buy ridiculously overpriced dog food, commission a large, sprawling doghouse that would take up at least sixty percent of the backyard, and probably enroll the thing in daycare instead of hiring a dog walker for when they’re working.  
  
“So would you.”  
  
Bokuto flips another page. He must have a dozen false-starts reading—by the time Keiji’s done he’s still staring at the upper-right corner, eyes narrowed. The magazine drops to his thighs again; Bokuto turns so his forearm rests over Keiji’s shoulders. “We could have a dog.”  
  
It’s nearly midnight.  
  
If Keiji listens he can almost make out the synthetic rush of wind and cicadas through the wall. It gives the atmosphere an odd tinge: nostalgia beating against weighty possibilities.  
  
They fit perfectly, crammed into one side of the bed. Bokuto’s forehead comes to rest against Keiji’s temple. Something so unreasonably full balloons in Keiji’s chest—just like when he was fifteen and alone in the stands watching Bokuto play his last rookie tournament, he can’t breathe around it.  
  
Bokuto’s kisses make Keiji’s lungs explode trying to absorb the taste of him. He is an expert, loves warming up, and will take all the time in the world with these open-mouth teases. One hand splays over Keiji’s neck, thumb brushing the line of his jaw. Fingers slide together and leave burning trails in the valleys between his knuckles. Then, Bokuto pulls back, dips his head to a new angle, and does it all over again. Their weight shifts, settles down into the pillows as Bokuto’s magazine crinkles between them.  
  
“This isn’t going to go where you want it to,” Keiji whispers in a rush because he has no air—he dragged it all in then it went tumbling out when he wasn’t paying attention.  
  
“Who says I’m trying to get anywhere? I have _some_ tact, you know. There’s always tomorrow. Or the day after. Or… well, you get the idea.”  
  
All the layers of _home_ wrap around him—in the sheets and the yellow-toned kitchen curtains and the rainbow of magnets on the refrigerator—and Keiji is just mad for this man. Mad for this life they’re going to build, for the rest of their story.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Me: I wonder what kind of parents Akaashi has.
> 
> Also me: …What are the funniest parents I can inflict on him?
> 
> Come shout about the definition of fluff on [twitter](https://twitter.com/frthelongestday) and help me win the totally irrelevant argument over it (it’s fluff, they say ILY that means it’s fluff vs. lolno that's not how it works).


End file.
